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The Immorality of a “No Boots on the Ground” Strategy

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Levi Brackman
Rabbi Levi Brackman is a Judaic writer, scholar, educator, activist and entrepreneur. He is the lead author of the bestselling
… [More]book "Jewish Wisdom for Business Success" and founder, creator and CEO or Next Stage Purpose (www.nextstagepurpose.com) an online app. that is scientifically proven to increase purpose, happiness and identity in users. He is also Executive Director of Youth Directions (www.youthdirections.com), a Denver based non-profit that helps youth find and succeed at their unique positive direction and purpose in life. He also serves as Rabbi to Judaism in the Foothills (www.jitf.org) a Synagogue and Jewish cultural organization based in Evergreen, Colorado which he founded. He has a Masters Degree in Judaics from University College London. [Less]

The alarming success ISIS has had in conquering territory in the Iraq and Syria coupled with our current inability to confront or hold them back is deeply troubling. Early this year many of us watched in horror as ISIS carried out acts of unspeakable evil and posted them to facebook and other social media sites. Many of us asked why the United States government was silent when it came to this horrific group. We were alarmed when State Department statements and briefing papers made no mention of this threat.

While Israel was fighting a war against Hamas early in the summer the Obama administration and the rest of the “civilized” world were busy condemning Israel for excessive force while they were silent about the barbarism of ISIS. President Obama now wants us to believe that while those of us with a facebook account were aware of what ISIS was doing, the Unites States intelligence community was not. It seems to me that there is more to it then that: this was a case of willful ignorance and that ignorance continues to this day.

This article is not meant to be an attack on the president of the United States and neither am I a partisan, but this administration has made some critical errors that has led directly to the frightening situation we currently find ourselves in. Worst of all, however, it is unaware that is it is making these mistakes and thus continues to make them. To be clear, the logic that leaving the Iraqis to their own devices will force them to defend their country against radicals like ISIS is flawed.

Here is why: subservient societies do not easily transition to become autonomous. Freedom is not just a state of being, it is a state of mind. One can be physically free yet mentally enslaved. One cannot just take societies that have been enslaved to a dictator for centuries and give them democracy in the belief that freedom will reign and that the newly liberated society will put their lives on the line to defend their liberties.

The Biblical story of libration is instructive here. According to the Biblical account it took ten miraculous plagues and the splitting of a sea for the Israelites to be freed from Egyptian slavery. But that was not the end of the saga. The Israelites then spent forty years in the desert before the transition from slaves to free people was complete.

As part of commemorating this, each year Jews celebrate the festival of Sukkot (celebrated this week), where temporary outdoor huts (sukkot in hebrew) are erected for one week. Meals are are taken in the huts during the festival. The God given reason for the holiday is because “I caused the Israelites to sit in sukkot (literally huts) when I took them out of Egypt,” (Leviticus, 23:43). Most commentators explain that sukkot refers to miraculous pillars of fire and clouds that protected the Israelites while they sojourned in the desert. Yet the Talmudic sage Rabbi Akiva disagrees, to him the festival of Sukkot celebrates the fact that God caused the Israelites to dwell in physical huts while they wandered in the desert for four decades (Sukkah 11b). This begs the questions: why is dwelling in huts something worth celebrating for generations?

One may answer that the biblical phrase “I caused [the Israelites] to sit in sukkot” conotes the idea that although the Israelites were in transition, living in huts, they were still settled and civilized — sitting. This progression from slavery to civilized societal living could not have occurred without Divine guidance and imputes — “I caused them to sit” says God, even while they were in huts. This, I submit is what we celebrate each year on Sukkot, for without a relatively successful transitionary period, guided by the Divine liberator, the entire enterprise would have failed.

It has long been my argument that the Biblical exodus story should be instructive for anyone who wants to help a subservient society transition into a free one. The lessons are clear: the transition takes time and the liberator must chaperone and guide the liberated during the transitionary period — they simply won’t transition successfully on their own.

This was the Obama Administration’s major mistake. He pulled all the troops out of Iraq and then told the Iraqis to complete the transition into a stable democracy on their own. The disastrous results of this erroneous strategy are now plain for all to see. The fact, however, that he insists on continuing this failed policy is unconscionable.

Instead of reversing course now, Obama continues to insist that there will be no American boots on the ground, in effect leaving millions of innocent people to the whims of brutal and merciless barbarians. To maintain that this is the fault of the Iraqis because they did not transition into a democratic society on their own or quickly enough is as wrong as it is immoral. Let’s be clear, America has a moral obligation here and it involves more than just supporting moderate Iraqis and flying sorties — we need to get back in the game and see the transition through till the end. Anything less not only hurts our security here at home it does violence to our moral standing.

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